Vintage Mardi Gras Shoe

This shoe is the mate to the one that became the Ruby Slipper, and I wanted to make use of it's classical lines. I'd also done quite a few bright and sassy purple green and gold shoes, so I was thinking of ways to riff on that classic color combo.

I did this shoe with the general theme of vintage Mardi Gras, and was thinking along the lines of the old line Krewes' Mardi Gras balls and invitations (some nice examples of this collected here).

The Vintage Mardi Gras shoe is done in a more muted purple, green and gold color palette (the green is Recollections "pesto," the purple is Martha Stewart "amethyst" and there are two shades of gold on the shoe, Recollections "champagne" and "gold").

 I had a pair of high heeled sandals with rhinestone straps which were slated to be donated or tossed, but instead I hung onto them for Muses shoes. I removed the rhinestone trim with a seam ripper and repaired it in a few spots with E6000. Also to be tossed was a severely beaten up and broken tiara that my mother had worn when she was Queen of the Spring Fiesta. I would guess it got beat up because she generously let my careless little hands destroy it when I was playing dress up as a little girl...sorry/thanks for that, Mom.  It was too far gone to be repaired to tiara form but I thought I might be able to salvage some pieces for a Muses shoe, and threw it into my stash of supplies. I assembled the broken pieces and combined with a strip of rhinestone trim to make a little crown that wrapped around the top of the shoe.

I had a little packet of pale purple, green and gold rhinestones from a post-Mardi Gras sale at Michael's two Mardi Gras back. There weren't a lot of rhinestones in the bag, but the colors matched this theme well and I embellished the crown and the strip of rhinestones across the foot with them. I added a cluster of feathers, and wrote "Muses" in a fancy script in gold glitter and gold beads using transfer. The year (2014) is on the toe in gold glitter (Recollections "champagne").

Violet Powderpuff Shoe

Another pretty basic Muses shoe, in the same general style as the blue and hot pink powderpuff shoe. The main body of the shoe is Recollections (color "orchid") with a sheer, iridescent Martha Stewart (color "sugar plum") layered over it. I'm really liking the results of layering the sheer MS glitters over a base coat of something more opaque.

The sole is Recollections (color "muse") and the heel and interior are iridescent silver (Recollects, color "bling"). The silver trim was bought at that Estate Sale and the powder puff is from a marabou boa that was on clearance at Joann's.

Not quite finished, as you can see, but nearly there.

Bathtub Float Shoe

As I mentioned in this post, I've been working on some Krewe of Muses signature float-themed shoes this year. This shoe is my homage to the Muses Bathtub Float. What gal doesn't love a nice luxurious bubble bath?

I started with a pair of white high heels (if you want to do white glittered shoes, it helps a lot to use a white base shoe), which got three coats of ArtMinds white glitter. The "rim" of the bathtub is a silver and white sequin trim that was included in an awesome bag of leftover craft goodies from a friend's bridal second line umbrella (the silver fleur-de-lis on this 2013 shoe and white sequins on the Cafe du Muses shoe were from the same source). I used hot glue because the trim was really thick and substantial.

I glittered the bottom of the shoe in hot pink glitter to represent the hot pink fringe along the bottom edge of the (Recollections, color "Janelle") and lined that edge with hot pink sequin trim from Jefferson Variety. The interior is Martha Stewart in "lapis lazuli" (I was trying to match the color of the tinsel "water" coming out of the float's shower head). The heel I glittered with the iridescent silver Recollections (color "bling"), then I glued on tiny mirror tiles to continue the bathtub theme. 

For the bubbles, I used a mix of discarded Christmas tree ornaments (I needed to modify them a little, but a little nail polish remover took the glue off their bases pretty easily) and silver bubbles from Michael's Halloween decoration line that I got with a coupon the last time I was there. I hot glued them around the interior edge and tried to make cute little clusters to mimic the bubble on the float.

Bird's-eye shot showing the "bubble" arrangement, and the blue interior

Hot pink sole, iridescent silver heel with tiny little mirrored tiles

I took a lot of pictures to try to capture it, but unfortunately, there's so much sparkle and iridescence I can't seem to take a really representative photo. I'm afraid this is one you really need to see in person!!

Artichoke Shoe

I haven't been able to update in a while, as I've been busy with work, but at long last I have a new mostly-finished shoe to post: the Artichoke Shoe!

I started out with a fake artichoke that I bought at Michael's with a 40% off coupon.

I removed all the leaves from the foam stem and glittered them each individually in two tones (Recollections "pesto" and "gold"). The back and foot of the shoe were glittered in "pesto," the interior "gold" and the sole (which doesn't really show in any of the pictures) was a deep purple (Recollections "muse"). Working with the same basic strategy as the Rose Shoe, I attached the "leaves" in rows working from the upper edge down to the top of the heel. Because the leaves were heavier than the petals, I used hot glue rather than E6000:

Edges were lined with green sequin trim:

Here's the back of the shoe (I touched it up after this photo was taken to cover the hot glue spots with green glitter):

And finally I added a glittery lemon slice (Martha Stewart "lemon drop" and Oriental Trading pastel yellow glitter):

Mini update

It's been a while since I updated. I don't have any new glittered shoes to show, but I thought I'd share two base pairs of shoes I recently acquired that I'm pretty excited about glittering when things settle down at work:

A pair of strap-tacular wedges that were on clearance at Target and some awesome shoes I got for less than $2 on e-bay. How great are those retro science fiction heels? I'll go ahead and stiffen the fabric of the straps on both those with glue before glittering, then they'll be good to go.

Knee high sneakers

I don't really do boots, but I wanted to point out that Claire's is selling these knee high sneakers for $12, plus it's buy one get one free...so if you were braver than me with alternate shoe shapes, you could get four wicked cool knee-high Converse-style sneakers to glitter for $3/each (plus whatever shipping is). As always, I'd recommend a smaller size (less glitter and glue, and I find the more petite shoes cutest)

Baltimore for the weekend!

I'm visiting my sister and taking a wee break before things go crazy at work this month. Incidentally, I probably won't be posting any glittered shoes until September, but there's still plenty of time between now and Muses 2014 (still over 200 days...boo)

We stopped at the Goodwill in Fells' Point, which is very different from other Goodwills I have visited. The Memphis Goodwill has far far slimmer pickings, but is much cheaper and NOLA is somewhere between the two. It was overwhelming (I could've gotten at least 20 really good pairs if I'd had the time/inclination), but I think I picked out some reasonable shoes:

My Goodwill purchased shoes on a pier in Baltimore (with the Under Armour HQ in the background)

That's one of my sister's dachshunds in the lower corner. Both her dogs are very into shoes...I'm sure Muses is their favorite too.

These were all $7-$8,. That's definitely is on the higher end of what I like to pay for Muses shoes because I don't like a shoe to be more than $5 including glitter, glue and decor, but these three are all excellent bases, so they won't take a lot of costly embellishment. That green pair has ribbon woven through grommets...I'm going to remove the ribbon, tape over the grommets while I glitter, then weave something fun in there like an LSU or Fleur de lis ribbon, or possibly I could make one in the pair into a Tiffany box shoe. That sandal is going to look great when the different bands are glittered different colors, and I'm just loving the topography of that wedge.

I'll go ahead acknowledge that I'm probably getting a little silly with picking up supplies/shoes on vacation, but in my defense the competition for high heels at Thrift Stores has got to be higher in NOLA than any other city on earth. I did see on the Facebook page someone mentioned that if you ask a lot of Thrift Stores have tubs of single shoes that they're just planning on throwing out...I may try and investigate that further.

Lily Pond Shoe

Along the lines of the Butterfly Garden shoe, I decided to do a wedge that was water lily themed, with the Botanical Gardens lovely lily pond and an impressionist color palette in mind.

I made lily pads by glittering some leaves from a bundle of silk geraniums (which seemed pretty similarly shaped). The lilies are some leftover flowers from when I was making wreaths for our Greek Fest costumes. I glittered them with some purple Martha Stewart glitter and added little clusters of gold beads in the middle. The lily pads and flowers move up the front of the shoe along the angle.

The interior blue is Martha Stewart "lapis lazuli" and the exterior lighter blue is also Martha Stewart (don't recall what the color is called at the moment). The wedge is Recollections ("pesto") and the sole is Recollections "orchid." The edges are lined with green sequin trim and the wedge is decorated with bits of mosaic tile glued with E6000.

Purple, pink and gold (WIP)

Exterior is Oriental Trading purple, Interior is ArtMinds hot pink, sole is Martha Stewart Gold. I bought some big gold appliques at an estate sale, I cut one of them up to decorate this shoe.